


Only human

by Anuna



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Baby Fic, F/M, Fertility Issues, Pregnancy, of course there's babymaking, one where Natasha does want to have a child, pregnancy loss, turn the cliche on its head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you love someone you have more to lose. But when you have nothing to lose... you simply have nothing."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only human

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out I can't have enough of these two + babies/children. I wanted to write a fic where Natasha does want to have children and play with that sort of approach to her. It turns out that having children can have an interesting effect on two of them, especially Natasha, who was meant to be everything but someone's mother and it turns out that deciding to become one can be an act of ultimate reclaiming - of herself, her body, everything she is and can become.
> 
> A huge thank you to my friend, braintwin and beta reader, [Koren M (CyberMathWitch)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/)

She thought she managed to forget about it – except you don't forget your wishes. Not these kinds of wishes.

They're on an undercover mission, posing as happily-in-love newlyweds taking a lazy vacation on the Mediterranean coast, holding hands and taking photographs, which is a rather convenient pastime. You can take a lot of photos as a tourist without anyone suspecting anything. Just a few more days and they'll be done, and that's always a relief, even with slow, easy missions like this one.

And then it happens – they're entering their hotel and run into a crying and obviously very scared little girl.

“Oh damn,” Clint says, and goes straight to her. There's something about him and children, something she studiously tries to avoid and not think too much about. It's like a glimpse of some other easier life, maybe, except it's right in front of her now in this life – he calms the little girl down and manages to make sense of what she's saying. Natasha chooses to go and ask about her parents and when she comes back, the girl is sitting on Clint's lap, and he's keeping her distracted with a game on his cell phone.

He even makes her laugh.

She gives Clint a hug before leaving with her dad, one of those earnest, hug-you-with-all-my-might hugs, and Clint smiles.

All Natasha can do is curse her own mind for refusing to let go of that image.

*

She had been pregnant, once. _Had been_. It was years ago, ages ago, in some other life, but she still remembers it vividly. She remembers that one perfect month when her life turned from bleak and dark into something tentatively hopeful, when she had a secret and a purpose that was hers and hers alone.

And then they found out. She is certain that her injury was no accident. She lost it, almost as suddenly as she found out about the child who would never be it was over. It was ripped away from her and it hurt so much, so damn much she had to forget how badly she'd wanted it.

She didn't allow herself to cry then, but she decided that she would leave. Leave _them_. Have a different life.

And she did. Eventually she did.

*

The weeks that follow are a struggle against her mind and better judgment but eventually she can't stop looking and noticing and reminding herself that she exists in a different world now. Nobody will purposefully hurt her after a failed mission, nobody will pump her full of drugs to rearrange her memories and her mind and use her sense of self, and the lack of it, to suit the next mission she'll be sent on. She gets to be herself, to define and choose who she is, gets to keep her memories. Keep her wishes.

She knows that Clint likes kids, and she's aware they like him in return. There are moments like when Beth from the science department walks in carrying her two year old son and Clint makes silly faces at him and those moments aren't a cause for an uncomfortable twitch in her gut that she tries to ignore as quickly as she can. Not anymore. Now she watches.

She feels caught, like a fly in a spiders web, and isn't that just fucking ironic? But she's caught and she watches him interacting with the children of various SHIELD scientists and agents and when she does things stir in her chest. Her imagination gives her uninvited thoughts, and she imagines what his children would look like, wonders if they would have his smile, or maybe his eyes and hair... and what if his child had green eyes instead of greyish blue?

Then she calls herself an idiot for even thinking that, but when she rides him that night in the bed (they don't make love, _they don't_ ) there's sadness slipping into the tight space between them and he reacts to it. Of course he does, and then he holds her face steady between his hands and kisses her fully and completely until she can't think about anything but him anymore.

*

It's not that she does it on purpose. In fact, she doesn't _do_ anything except try to keep her thoughts under control, and she doesn't understand what she's feeling. When she starts to bleed her chest feels hollow, and she's not even sure why. But she's sad and he sees it, and when he offers a massage she accepts, and she wishes his fingers could melt into her as he rubs her lower back. After those five days are over she's happy to invite him back into her bed, and she's not thinking about it, but things are somehow different, and she holds onto his shoulders just a bit tighter when he comes and lets herself fall asleep against his chest, and yeah. That's new. If it's not on mission, if it's not after something bad, really really bad, they usually retreat to their own beds, but she invites herself to stay and he lets her and she lets him stay with her in return.

They're using protection like they always do, they both have a stash of condoms, and they're careful about that. But next month she's bleeding again and she's not thinking about it. She's _not_ telling herself it's some kind of proof, a reminder. She's _not_. Except her hormones do horrible things to her mood and people stay away from her, and she stays away from anyone tugging a child along with them, and nobody dares to take her up on her sparring offer, so she spends her time at the shooting range.

Right.

_You're a thing that kills_ , she tells herself. Blood suits her. Blood defines her.

A week later she's horny and frustrated and he's on a mission that lasts longer than planned so after he comes back she doesn't even let him rest and she barely lets him shower. His hair is still damp when she snatches away his towel, pushes him onto his bed and rides him so hard, she aches after. The condoms stay in his drawer, completely forgotten. She doesn't think about it, she just falls asleep next to him, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night he just takes her and it's good, so good. He doesn't complain when she keeps it up for days, and she lets him grab her wrists, pin her down against his sheets and take her slowly, kiss her and shatter her, but it still doesn't fix the emptiness she's feeling in her chest.

And then, several days later, she remembers the box of condoms. Something warm spreads through her chest, and even though she tries to squelch it, there's a small, small voice of hope there. There's an actual chance.

 

*

Did she really expect he wouldn't notice? That he wouldn't clue in to the way she jumps him when he doesn't expect it, when protection is far away and out of reach, and how she does everything in her power to distract him and drive him wild and out of control. And then, how she crumbles in on herself each month when it doesn't work, when she can't keep a part of him within herself?

She's spinning in circles, trying to quench this impossible thirst and fill up something so profoundly empty and it just doesn't work. Of course he doesn't miss it, because he knows her, because he's the one who notices patterns and designs and of course he notices this. So when he finds her crying in the bathroom, he looks worried and maybe a little pissed, but mostly worried, and he still manages a tender tone.

“Will you tell me what's wrong?” he finally asks.

She looks at him and thinks that even if someone took her mind again, they would never be able to erase the memory of his face from her. She knows every line around his eyes, every tiny scar and every fleck of gold in his gaze. How is she supposed to explain this to him? She has trouble explaining it to herself. What the hell is she doing?

“Natasha,” he says, his tone heavy and hushed and asking for honesty. It's what he's always given her.

“I've done something,” she says quietly. “Something wrong. God, I can't-”

“Nat,” he says and comes closer, and he's right there. “Tell me,” he says, taking her hands and holding them against his chest. There's a steady beat in there, strong and powerful under her palm. “Come on, Nat,” he says, but when she can't, when she starts crying he pulls her to him. The moment when he holds her close and tucks her under his chin, that moment when she feels protected and invited and wanted despite what she's done, that's the moment when it all clicks together, when it's finally too much.

“I saw you with that girl... that lost little girl and I remembered what I lost, once,” she says and then she tells him about her baby. How it was an accident, unplanned, but when she found out something changed. It felt like she was alive for the first time, and she wanted it, wanted to protect it, and she _failed_.

He doesn't say anything and she looks up at him. “I wanted that baby so much. And now -” she holds her breath and searches his eyes but finds no judgment. He watches her and waits for what she has to tell him, no matter what it is. That's how they work.

But how does she tell him this? How can she explain what she's been feeling and what she's been doing? Her face falls against his chest and he holds her there, and she stays in this position, clinging to it.

“I got my period,” she manages and chokes on a sob.

“Nat -” his voice is soft, but she can tell realization is dawning.

“It's not that – oh, God. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have -”

“Shouldn't have tricked me out of using condoms?” he says and she freezes, but he squeezes her shoulders.

“I'm sorry Clint. What I did was-” She hates that she's crying, but it hits her just how unfair it was, what she's been doing, because if you want to make someone a father, you should at least ask them beforehand.

He lifts her chin before she's able to say anything else. When he moves his hand and cradles her face, his eyes are gentle. It's a rare look, because they're both rough people, cut from hard materials and meant for harsh things, but he kisses her forehead. "It wasn't fair, but it's human. And I'm not exactly blameless. But you should have told me.”

“That I fantasized about having your babies?” her tone is slightly bitter with self inflicted scorn but he strokes her back and caresses her cheek and he lets her regain her breath and calm down. She presses her face against his chest again, because his heart is right there and the steady sound of it calms her.

“Yeah. Guys usually find it flattering,” he says seriously but when she looks up at him he smirks and it takes the heaviness away.

“Clint?”

“You want it,” he states calmly and it's there, finally out there and laid between them. She finds that when she nods she feels relief.

“Yes.”

“Like I said, you should have told me,” he repeats.

“And you'd have said _yes_ , just like that?” now she sounds pissed, just a little, but she isn't, she is scared and frustrated and too raw for this but when he holds onto something he usually doesn't let go.

“No, not just like that,” he kisses the top of her head and God, things are rolling off her chest and she feels she's falling against him, melting into him. “But I went along with it, Nat. I let you do it, but we should have discussed it,” he says and she takes a deep breath, and looks up at him and he's serious, God, he's actually serious.

“Clint -” she's asking and not daring to ask at the same time and no, she must not hope, cannot give those tiny flutters in her chest the right to live. But they do, because he nods and smiles a little and kisses her again, tenderly.

“I want to know if this is something you're sure about,” he says, and how did she miss the hope in his eyes before? Sure, it was covered with all those other things, but still it's burning there.

She bites her lip because she's a double idiot, because she'd watched him with other people's children all this time and she'd imagined what a good (great, _amazing_ ) father he would be and how had it never occurred to her that he would want it too?

“It's – yes,” she stammers and looks at him. It settles within her as she looks at him, sees the chance he's offering her. “Yes. Yes, yes, _yes_ ,” she breathes and he holds her face and she pulls him against her. “I would like... _love_ if you-”

“I would,” he nods. “I would love it too."

*

They start to actively plan, like it's another kind of mission. She counts her days more closely and is even more careful about what she eats and he starts paying more attention to her cycle. When she reaches the middle he doesn't exercise as hard as he usually does. She notices how he avoids heavier activity and sticks to shooting practice or training sessions with younger agents and when she asks him, he tells her someone once told him that hard exercise reduces sperm count. She's not entirely sure it's true, but hearing him say it makes her think her heart might burst.

She feels a little crazy when she texts him that it's right now, and she even uses the word _ovulating_ and he comes running if he can and then they just do it at the first spot available.

They have sex more than they ever have before, are less careful about being discreet than ever before (but if people notice any changes in their behavior nobody comments on it). She feels possessed and thoroughly fucked and at the same time it's more, so much more, and she can't find the right word for it. But they push themselves as hard as they can, and nothing happens.

It just doesn't.

 

It's like her body is too stubborn, unwilling to accept this again and allow her this. It's worse with every passing month and she compensates by trying harder, being more precise, and Clint, he just does _everything_ she asks, he even leaves meetings and fucks her in a storage room in headquarters, with a hand over her mouth. But it doesn't help.

She's starting to fall apart, slowly, because she isn't meant for this. She really isn't. And she hates herself because she sees it on him too, sees how sad he gets when he sees children now and even though he still entertains them, still smiles at them, he's tainted with her sadness and failure. She feels like she's ruined it for him.

*

She does let herself cry now, and she cries for the baby she lost and for the children she can't seem to give them, and even though she's hiding the tears from him as best as she can, he finds her eventually. Of course he does.

Thank God he does, because she was starting to feel like she was losing him too.

He carries her from bathroom to bed and they lay curled up together, her back against his front and his arms around her.

“I can't,” she says. “Maybe I should just accept that I can't – won't be a mother,” she finally manages to say, and she feels him bury his face in the crook of her neck, and this is only bearable because he's here.

“You're healthy. There's nothing wrong with your body,” he reminds her, because that's what three different doctors have told them (they were a young married couple once again, each time with different names, but they'd all been married for three years and had been trying just as long, and every single doctor had given them a look that said it was a question without an answer. That sometimes it happens quickly and sometimes it takes years and even with the best diagnostic tools, it's impossible to tell why). “This isn't a mission, Tasha,” he tells her and she closes her eyes.

Her entire life has been a fucking mission, one right after another. Even now, even now when she's living something that resembles "normal", there are days she can't function without knowing what her mission is. She's never had a life just to live it, and maybe _that's_ the problem.

“I want it so much, Clint,” she finally admits, and turns to look at his face - his beautiful, familiar face. “I want it so much it hurts,” she says and winds her hands around him, lets herself be pulled in against him and God. God, God, _God_ ; it feels like her chest is cracking open when she finally lets herself truly feel what she hadn't until now, how she wants to be pregnant, by him, wants to feel his child grow inside of her, wants to carry it under her heart and bring it to this world. How much she wants to know how that feels, what it feels like to hold a baby that's hers and his and love someone more than she loves herself.

But her body isn't meant to create, she thinks, no matter how much she wants to make something to better than a list of kills and a path of destruction, something that's _good_. The Black Widow wasn't born, she was created, and how can someone's manufactured creation bring something new and real into this world? It feels like she's forever limited by the design of her makers, to be only a weapon and nothing more.

He sighs against her hair, presses kisses against her face and she can feel wetness on his cheeks.

“I can only kill,” she says. “I can't -”

He stops her with a kiss.

“That's not true,” he says. It sounds certain, like he doesn't have any shred of doubt and she wants to challenge his conviction.

“How can you know?”

“Because I've seen it, Tasha,” he says, and she shakes her head, but he stops her. “I've seen it,” he repeats and she knows what that statement means because she trusts him to be her eyes when she cannot see.

Eventually, they curl into one another and fall asleep.

*

They stop being so frantic about it. She still counts and she knows he does too, but it's more relaxed. And the sex is better. The sex is _glorious_. It's slow and tender and fun and hot and hard and whatever she wants it to be, because it's with him, and it's good even when it's not perfect.

Her favorite thing is when he's drowsy and half asleep and she leans on her hand and watches him, just watches him; and he cracks one eye open and smiles at her. Just like that, like they have a secret, the best fucking secret in the world.

 

But a word with four letters is just too small, and how could she possibly fit everything he is to her into it?

*

 

Bangkok is a long, arduous mission, and it's a tiring trip back home and it takes two days to for them to sleep it all off properly (along with a decent amount of coffee). Decompression for Clint involves the shooting range. Natasha, though, takes herself shopping on a whim, because she wants to do something she doesn't usually do. Something different and wholly unrelated to the job.

She comes home with lingerie. It's lots of lace and silky threads meant to be untied and in the evening when she shows it off Clint is just too impatient to undo it properly. She loves how it makes him react, how he mouths her breast through her bra and finally she takes it off for him.

First he eats her out, long and slow, just like he wants, with two fingers inside of her and his name struggling broken from her mouth when she comes. Then she rides him, and he flips her over later and he fucks her hard and fast until finally it's just silence and her hands on his sweaty back. His weight on her is wonderful and grounding, and they kiss slowly even as they're falling asleep.

They sleep and fuck and eat breakfast together and they go back to their lives, imperfect as they are, but she's thankful for them.

*

Five weeks later she's losing her breakfast and then collapsing next to the toilet when Clint walks into bathroom.

He looks at her and she looks back and yes her breasts are sore and her stomach is upset and nothing tastes right. She threw up yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. She doesn't want to hope, but there's something tugging at her chest. Isn't she supposed to feel it, she wonders, isn't she just supposed to know that it happened? Her body feels like it always did, except she's been nauseated and tired for the past few days, but nothing else except that.

Clint goes out and comes back with four different tests and she pees in a cup and then they hold their breath.

It takes less than a minute before two blue lines appear on the first test and she feels like she might collapse, actually feels her legs shake, but Clint is right there and he steadies her.

And then the other three tests are positive too, and she chokes on a sound that could be a laugh or a sob (or both) and she's pressed against his chest and he's laughing and saying nonsense things against her hair and _oh God._

“I guess I knocked you up,” he says and she turns around and hugs him.

*

The life doesn't become perfect. In fact she could say things only become more complicated, but it's a good kind of complicated, if there is such thing. There's a purpose to it. But there's worry as well and they need to have conversations, need to make decisions and it feels like everything happens slowly, and sometimes they're both too worried to sleep. Even in her exhaustion it's difficult to find peace of mind behind her closed eyelids.

What if something happens and she loses this baby, too? What if her body can't carry a pregnancy to term? What if all those things Red Room did to her affect baby's development and health?

And what if something happens to Clint? What then?

*

Life, she learns, can be both beautiful and terrifying and she feels both constantly. In the meantime she's given a desk job, goes to see the doctors, eats the right food and her body changes. It feels like it's constantly changing, and maybe that's why this is so exhausting. Maybe it's because she needs to learn to give in sometimes, and let Clint take care of her, or let Coulson pick up the heavy stuff and pretend not to notice when Maria glares at whoever is curiously staring at her.

Fury wasn't happy about their news, which she expected, but even when he mentioned "bending the fraternization rules into the realm of ridiculous" there was no real bitterness in his voice. Natasha cannot claim she knows him well, but she's fairly sure she understands how he works and what governs him and one thing stands out – he deems them both too valuable to lose. And just when she thinks that practicality and their usefulness is all there is to it, she discovers that there's now an obstetrician among medical personnel. It could be ascribed to Fury's unwillingness to let his best spy go to regular doctors, that the risks would be too high, but still. She can create foolproof covers and Fury knows that very well.

Her official partnership with Clint ends, at least for a while, but they were both aware it would have to happen eventually. She doesn't mind as much as she expected she would, because a different kind of partnership between them is just beginning.

Her work is strange as it is, but they're not the first people at SHIELD to have children. Others make it work and she will as well. _They_ will. It doesn't matter that this doesn't happen often between agents, and she's aware some people think a child is the last thing she needs - she tells herself they're wrong and have no right to define her, that no one does.

This belongs to her. To her and to Clint. To them.

 

*

“Hey. Hey, it's just me. Sleep.”

She could try, but there's no way she'll go back to sleep, not when he's been away for two weeks. She drags herself out from under the blankets, slower than she's used to because she's almost six months along and movement is different now. He wraps his arms around her, and even though he smells like distant places and strange things it's him underneath all of that; his smell and his strength. Before, she would've hugged him briefly and gone back to bed, and eventually he would've joined her, but not any more.

She's not used to needing like this – like a part of her is missing when he's gone.

She'd trained herself not to feel like that, for most of the partnership, even more so once they became involved, but she exhausted all of her resources for that days ago, because her stomach is growing and their baby is moving inside of her and he wasn't here to feel it.

They pull apart slowly and he holds her shoulders and takes all of her in. She knows he sees the changes, she sees how he catalogs them, and looks at her, then touches her stomach.

“You've gotten bigger,” he says and his mouth quirks up and she can she hear how happy he is to be back in his voice. Unlike her, he lets himself miss her. She doesn't know how he deals with that but she knows she'll have to learn.

“You left me all alone with a fridge full of food,” she says, arched eyebrow and dry humor because that's the safe route, that's what she knows how to handle.

“Must remember not to do that again,” he says and smiles a bit more.

“I wouldn't object,” she answers and lets herself sink all the way back into his arms, and he rests his chin on top of her head. “Will you go shower? I can make us some tea,” she offers.

“Aren't you tired?” he asks in return and she shrugs because she doesn't want to get teary eyed and tell him how she missed him and tried not to.

“I'm hungry,” she says instead.

“Of course you are,” he drops a kiss on her forehead and starts to leave, but just before the door he stops and turns and says “little bear.”

“I'll smack you,” she says and he shouts _empty threats_ before he closes the bathroom door.

She goes to the kitchen and makes the tea, and he's there just as she finishes. He's clean and his skin is still damp and she lets him wrap his arms around her, and he rests his face against her hair. His hands slide down to her belly, and she hears his content sigh when his palms connect with her and their child. The baby chooses that moment to kick and he chuckles.

 

“Hey there,” Clint strokes the spot and Natasha has to remind herself to breathe, and put her hands over his to steady herself. “Missed me?” he asks and her heart hurts and soars at the same time and it feels wonderful and terrifying.

“We... we both did,” she says finally, lacing her fingers with his.

Does he know what he does to her? What she feels when he kisses her hair and when he holds her like this and she wishes he would never set his foot through that door again because she needs him and she's scared of needing him like this? “I was worried,” she says instead and he nods.

“I was worried about both of you,” he says, and she can't bear this, she can't do this any more so she turns around and buries her face in his chest, and her stomach presses against him. “Hey! Hey, babe, what's going on?”

“I don't know if I can do this, Clint,” she gasps and starts to cry, and he holds her and soothes her and tells her tender things, things she wants to run away from, but she can't. “I can't stop thinking something is going to happen to you, and God damn it, it shouldn't have been like this! I never thought -”

She looks up and expects to see hurt on his face, expects something sharp and angry, but it's not there. He caresses her cheek and moves the strands of her hair away from her face. His look is steady and serious and tender underneath that.

“I remember a girl I met in a darkened alley in Prague. She'd lost her shoe and had three guys chasing her and I had an arrow pointed at her, but she still refused to surrender. Do you remember her?”

She rests her forehead against his chest and tries to find a thread to lead her back to that memory. It's so distant, so far away, it's miles away and she can't find the strength to go back there. She barely has the strength to stands here, she feels so far away from herself and who she was. She feels like she's out of control now in a way that girl had never been, at the mercy of her body, and her heart and her child.

 

“Do you remember what she told me?” she can hear the smile in his voice, feel his fingers stroking her hair and face. “She said she wanted her life back and nobody would take it from her. Not the guys chasing her and definitely not some goddamn fool with a bow and arrows,” he says it fondly and chuckles and a short laugh escapes her, too. “And that was the truth, you know. You didn't let them or anyone else take your life. Baby, look at me,” he says and she raises her head to meet his eyes. “I'm crap with words,” he says as the corners of his mouth tilt up and she sees that his eyes are wet, but he's not even trying to hide it.

“I somehow don't believe that.”

“My point was you took your life from _them_ and got it back. And this just comes with the package,” he kisses her forehead, and she nods, because she trusts him, because he's the one between two of them who's the eyes, and she trusts him to find the way out. “When you love someone,” he stops and there's this look in his eyes, heavy and open. He puts his hand on her stomach and the way he does it tells her he means both of them, her and the baby she's carrying. “You have more to lose.”

Her eyes fill with tears again, and he brushes them away with his thumbs.

“But when you have nothing to lose... you simply have nothing,” he finishes, and it sounds sad and ironic and it just hits her in the chest because it's the truth. She didn't run away to continue living her life in a void, like a lifeless thing running on definitions that they gave her, only emmulating other people's feelings. She wanted a life, and it turned out that life was painful, that there was always a price.

But emptiness is a false safety. Why bother living at all, if there's no one to share it with? Clint has taught her things, given her things she wouldn't have enjoyed if he wasn't there with her, sharing them.

“It still scares me,” she says. 

His arms tighten and he kisses her hair again and whispers,“It scares the hell outta me, too.”

*

“Going somewhere, my little girl?” Natasha asks, and smiles as her daughter smiles back when Natasha picks her up from her bed. She's three months old and she's learned how to smile, how to look at and hold her mother's gaze to keep her mother close to her. Now she's starting to lift herself up, beginning to work towards rolling over. “Are you going somewhere, my love?”

She smiles and waves her hand and makes a string of meaningless sounds that settle in Natasha's chest. Her little girl looks at her like she's everything in the entire world that is good and safe and kind, and this, _this_ is worth more than anything else. Elizabeth has Natasha's eyes and her hair will probably turn a proud shade of red, but she also has her father's smile and his button nose. She has Natasha's stubbornness and Clint's bright moods and the more Natasha knows her the more of them she discovers – and there are things she finds that are somehow new. She holds her daughter, nurses her and comforts her, soothes her to sleep, and sometimes she feels almost like she's holding herself, too, and giving herself back all those things she was denied.

She wonders if Clint feels the same when he holds their child; if he finds parts of himself he'd forgotten or thought were lost and feels old wounds heal.

“Hey you two,” his voice is quiet when he enters the room and there's a tired smile on his face.

“Hey daddy,” Natasha says and he smiles brighter. He loves it to hear it, and she uses it, calls him that because he loves it so much. She'd been right about that; he loves being a father. There are moments when he's quiet, just holding their daughter and she can see things on his face she's never seen before. Beautiful, strong, unshakable things.

“What are my lovely girls up to?” he asks as he comes over room and makes a place for himself next to Natasha in the large, soft chair.

“We're gossiping about you.” Natasha nods at Elizabeth who looks at Clint and then back at her in wonder. “That's daddy, baby. Daddy's home,” she says and hands her over to Clint who has the brightest smile in the world. It's the kind of smile that takes away years of pain and things he didn't deserve to have happen to him.

“Hi baby girl,” he says. “And hi mommy,” he adds, dropping a kiss on Natasha's cheek. “So what did you gossip about, huh? Gonna tell your ol' dad?”

Elizabeth looks at him with wonder when he talks, she always does, like his voice is something special. Clint's voice and the sound of Natasha's heartbeat, those are the things that calm her down, that let her know the world is as it should be, and sometimes Natasha still doesn't know what to do with that thought. But she's vowed to protect and raise her daughter, and nothing, nothing in this world will stop her. Clint smiles and the baby smiles back, mirroring his happiness to see her. Then he bows her head to give her a gentle kiss, and Natasha thinks _this_. This is worth more than all the worry and pain and sleepless nights. It's the life her creators never meant for her to have, it's everything that was taken from her, the last thing she was meant to be, but she reclaimed it, and herself, every bit of herself. She curls into Clint's side and he welcomes her with an open arm around her shoulders as she takes Elizabeth back. She murmurs _thank you_ after she leans against him, and he whispers it back to her. He's wrapped around them and her body is tired, but her heart is full.


End file.
